


sweetness sings from every corner

by manybumblebees



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Cookies as a plot device, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Philadelphia Flyers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:44:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22100407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manybumblebees/pseuds/manybumblebees
Summary: “Don’t read into this,” Patty mumbles, and shoves a Tupperware of cookies at TK’s chest.
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 55
Kudos: 629





	sweetness sings from every corner

**Author's Note:**

  * For [callabang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/callabang/gifts).

> happy BELATED christmas calla!! I didn't bother posting this as a hockeyhols treat because a) I didn't finish it in time but mainly because b) it would've been ludicrously obvious it was from me.

It’s been snowing all day, and all TK wants to do when he gets home from practice is roll himself into a blanket on the couch and stay there until Sanny coaxes him out with food. He gets a good few hours of burrito time in until someone starts knocking on his door.

TK ignores it until the knocking turns into banging, and then he heaves himself off the couch, keeping the blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cape, and wanders into the hallway to open the door. It’s Patty, standing there red-faced with a toque pulled down all the way over his ears and snow on his shoulders.

“Don’t read into this,” he mumbles, and shoves a Tupperware at TK’s chest. He pushes his hands into his coat pockets and half turns to go, but then he sighs and shoulders past TK into the apartment, instead.

“What’s this?” 

TK nudges the door shut and lifts the lid of the container at one corner. There’s baking paper folded over the top, so he can’t see what’s inside, but whatever it is smells like gingerbread, so. It’s probably gingerbread. “Oh, your mom’s cookies?”

“Something like that.”

Patty shrugs, dumping a load of snow onto the floor in addition to all the sludge he tracked in with him. TK should probably throw a towel down or something. Sanny’s not gonna care, but Alex will.

“Did you walk here?”

Patty shrugs again. His cheeks are red from the cold, and there’s snow on his hat, too, melting into the brim.

“It’s only like twenty minutes.”

He stands there unlooping his scarf for what feels like a long time, like one of those magician tricks where they pull the handkerchiefs from their sleeve forever. Every time TK thinks he’s done, there’s just more scarf.

TK has the weird urge to make him a hot chocolate. Maybe it’s the gingerbread – it’s like, invoking the Christmas spirit. He doesn’t actually know how to make hot chocolate, but he has chocolate milk and a microwave and a can-do attitude. He can definitely give it a shot.

Patty finishes with the scarf and starts scrabbling kind of uselessly at the buttons on his coat like his fingers are numb, and TK has a second, weirder urge to bat his hands away and undo his coat for him, so he turns around and takes the cookies into the kitchen, instead.

“Do you want a hot chocolate?” he shouts in the vague direction of the hallway, already grabbing mugs out of the cupboard and pouring chocolate milk into them. He wonders if they have any of those tiny marshmallows. He tentatively pokes through what he’s come to think of as Alex’s cupboard, moving aside a box of herbal tea and checking behind her chocolate stash.

She totally has mini marshmallows. Girls are like, on a whole other level. It’s so sick living with one, even if Alex only technically lives here some of the time, when she’s not in Manitoba for school. She’s still here a lot. TK’s well aware she and Sanny only asked him to live with them as like, a buffer, to make this a chill roommate situation and not a couple living together, which would be too much too soon, too grown up, but TK’s cool with that. They have a good vibe going, it’s nice.

Not that living basically next door to Patty wasn’t nice. It’s just different. With Alex here, they cook most days instead of ordering in, and they’ve got plants that stay alive for more than a week. They went out and bought a bunch of decorations, and then he and Alex set up the tree together, so the place actually looks like Christmas. It’s a home more than his apartment last year ever was, even with Patty around all the time. Patty moved out of their building pretty quickly after TK did, so he hasn’t really been back, but he’d rented the place with all the furniture included, pictures on the wall, everything. It probably looks exactly the same now with someone else living in it. 

Point is, living with Alex and Sanny is cool. There are like, perks. Still, though, TK will probably move out at the end of the season, let them do their couple thing. Maybe he’ll get a place with Patty next year, if he can pry him away from Kevin. Maybe they’ll all live together. Kevin keeps saying his place is big enough.

Pats wanders into the kitchen with just absolutely disastrous hat hair, having finally like, escaped from his scarf, and TK has to laugh at him until he rakes his hands through it to flatten it down, going incrementally pinker in the cheeks.

TK adjusts the blanket around his shoulders and puts the mugs in the microwave, takes a stab at how long to set it for – two minutes? He can always put them back in. 

“Is that how you make hot chocolate?” Patty says doubtfully.

“Improvise, adapt, overcome,” TK tells him, and takes the clip off the bag of marshmallows. Bag clips are a thing he owns now. Really, like, next-level shit. He pulls the lid off the Tupperware and folds back the baking paper to inspect his spoils. The tub is full to the brim with gingerbread cookies in all different shapes, decorated with neat, thin lines of red and white icing. They smell so fucking good that it takes real effort not to cram a whole handful of them into his mouth at once, but TK wants to savour them. It’s not every day he gets to eat Carrie Patrick’s cookies.

Patty’s mom’s a beauty. She sends Pats a shitload of cookies every Christmas, and he usually shares, just out of like, necessity, because there’s no way he can eat them all by himself. But also because he’s a good dude. TK ate like twelve of her caramel thumbprint cookies in one sitting last year, and when Patty told her, she’d sent a whole second box just for him. He’d eaten so many of those so quickly that he’d felt a little sick, but it’s been long enough that he’s ready to take another stab at them. Break his record. Fuck, he loves Carrie.

He carefully roots through the box for his favourites. “Did she just send you gingerbread this year, or did you already eat all the good ones?”

“No, uh, I made these.”

TK looks up at where Patty’s sort of awkwardly lingering by the island, rubbing the back of his neck.

“What? Dude.” TK feels pretty bad for saying these aren’t the good ones. “They look awesome.”

Patty goes red all the way to his ears. “I know you like the caramel ones,” he mumbles, looking down at the countertop, “but I just wanted to keep it simple, you know?”

“Oh yeah,” TK says, picking out a Christmas tree with a thin white outline of icing and little red circles for baubles. He holds it up for him. “Just real basic shit, Patso. Did you even try?” He grins and bites the top off the tree, making an appreciative noise that is admittedly like, a little gross. “They’re so fucking good, dude.”

“They’re my mom’s recipe,” Patty rumbles. His mouth curls up at the corners, clearly pleased, but he’s barely making eye contact, like he’s somehow embarrassed about making bomb cookies. “She always made us help her bake them so like, I know how.”

“Yeah, obviously. Hidden depths, man.”

TK can’t believe Pat made cookies, holy shit. He’s kind of pissed he didn’t get to see him do it. TK pictures him in an apron, drawing the fiddly little lines of icing with his giant hands. Pat’s weirdly good at delicate shit like that for someone who can’t tie his own ties. Fuck, TK’s seen him struggle to tie his _shoes _– but this he can do, somehow.

The microwave dings, and TK clamps the cookie between his teeth so he can use both hands to take the mugs out. They’re steaming, so they’re probably hot enough, and he puts them down and pours a mound of little marshmallows into both.

“D’you wanna watch_ Die Hard _or something?” he says, remembering too late that he still has a cookie in his mouth. He takes it out. “Haven’t seen you in like–”

Okay, so, technically he saw Patty at the rink this morning, and they hung out last night, but Hayesie was there, and Ghost showed up later, so it kind of doesn’t count. “A while,” he finishes lamely.

“Sure. It’s a Christmas movie, right?” Pat says, grinning.

TK grins back.

“Fucking right.”

They’re doing Christmas shit. Hell yeah. TK loves Christmas shit.

Patty takes one of the mugs off TK so he has a hand free to carry the box of cookies to the couch. Patty flops down next to him, kicking his shoes off and putting his feet up on the coffee table before TK even has the movie set up, just making himself at home like he’s been here more than twice.

TK puts the cookies in his lap and wraps one hand around his mug as the movie starts to play. He’s already on his third cookie by the time Bruce Willis makes his way off the plane with the big teddy bear, and he belatedly remembers his manners. “D’you want one?” he says with his mouth full. _Some _of his manners.

“Yeah, get me a star. They’re the best ones.”

Patty’s sort of hovering his face over his hot chocolate, letting the steam waft over him.

“Are they different?”

TK pushes aside a couple of Christmas trees and snowflakes to get a star out for Patty.

“Nah, they’re all the same. They’re just my favourite.”

“Your favourite _shape_? Weirdo.”

Patty laughs, and looks like he wants to shove TK a little, one pointy-ass elbow coming out to play before he tucks it back in, like he remembers just in time that they’re both holding hot chocolate and the couch is white. Alex picked it out.

TK’s seen _Die Hard_ a hundred times, so maybe he watches Patty happily chomping away at his cookie more than he watches the movie. He bites off each point of the star in turn, because he’s a complete weirdo, slouched way down on the couch, hot chocolate propped on his stomach, the marshmallows melted into a multicoloured glob.

Feels like old times, sacking out on the couch together. Like, not even that long ago old times, but it weirdly aches a little to think about. 

Maybe it’s a bigger deal than TK thought it would be when they talked about it at the end of the summer, how their apartments kind of sucked and they were only really staying there because of each other. TK likes living here with Sanny and Alex, and it’s fun going over to Patty’s and getting Kev as like, a package deal. They’re only a few minutes away, walking distance when they can be bothered, and he and Pat still see each other all the time, that hasn’t changed. They just don’t spend a lot of time together any more where it’s just the two of them, and TK hadn’t really thought about it at the time, but he like, misses him, in a weird way, despite seeing him every day.

Patty glances over and catches him looking. “Are you watching this or not?” he grouches, reaching over for another cookie. TK sips his hot chocolate while he rummages through the box for a star, even though he just said they all taste the same.

“I can’t believe my mom makes like, twelve different ones. I just did these and I’m exhausted.”

“How many did you make?”

“You’re looking at ‘em. What’s left of them.”

Pats gives him a grin and nods at the Tupperware. TK can see the bottom of the container, fuck, how many has he had? He’d kind of lost track. There’s one that looks different than any of the others, and he moves aside a snowflake to get a better look, and then promptly moves it back to where it was. His heart is hammering in his chest. He’s had so much sugar that he feels a little insane with it, vibrating out of his skin. Lifts up the snowflake again just to make sure he isn’t like, seeing things.

“Did you make these just for me?” TK says, voice measured. He doesn’t want Patty to think he’s complaining. It’s just– he’s just– he’s had a lot of sugar. The thought of Pats like, making an effort, how red he’d been when he got here– TK’s thoughts are spinning off into all different directions. Or maybe just one, completely insane direction. He shouldn’t have eaten all those cookies _and _had a hot chocolate – it’s probably like, a combined ten thousand calories, and he feels a little like he’s having an out-of-body experience, everything vaguely surreal.

Next to him, Pat takes a long sip from his hot chocolate before answering, keeping his eyes trained on the movie. “Kev had some while I was making them. The ones I fucked up.”

He’s so still. Pretty much like, the exact opposite of how TK’s feeling. He pushes aside the snowflake again to look at the other cookie, tucked at the bottom of the container like Patty was trying to hide it, like he thought TK wouldn’t see it until he’d left. Pretty stupid of him to think TK wouldn’t eat them all in a single sitting. What is he, new?

“Dude, I told you not to read into it,” Patty says. He’s looking at TK now, which doesn’t make anything better. “I just have like, way too much time on my hands.”

“Okay,” TK says, as evenly as he can manage. It’s taking everything he has to stay seated and not like, pace around the room or something. His leg’s jiggling, and he doesn’t think he could stop it if he tried. He feels crazy. 

He digs the last cookie out and holds it up to Patty. “It’s uh, pretty hard not to read into this, bud.”

It’s a heart, outlined like the other cookies in a thin band of white icing, with “TK” piped on it in careful, curly red letters. Underneath, some real nail-in-the-coffin shit, is another, smaller heart in red icing. TK’s finding it hard to like, look directly at it.

“It’s tradition,” Patty mutters, going furiously red. Kind of matches the cookie, if you think about it. “Everyone gets one with their name on it.”

“I didn’t last year.”

Patty sighs, bone-deep, all the way from his toes. “You can’t put names on the thumbprint ones.”

“Okay, but like–” TK waves the cookie in his face. It’s hearts _on _hearts. Patty isn’t acknowledging like, the big picture of it.

“Bro–” Pat snaps. “I’m not trying to hit on you with cookies.”

He makes a pissy arm gesture, coming so close to sloshing the remains of his hot chocolate all over the couch that TK’s heart actually sinks.

“How should I know? I don’t know what your moves are.”

Patty glares at him. “Not that.”

“Okay, dude.”

TK’s been out with Pat when he’s been on the prowl, or whatever, and his moves mostly seem to consist of like, being Nolan Patrick, and existing near girls looking the way he does. There isn’t a whole lot of effort involved. Patty’s probably never had to work to woo anyone in his life, and TK’s kind of struggling to picture what that would even look like, except that it apparently doesn’t involve cookies. Not that he thought– but still.

He gets so caught up thinking about it that he misses what Pat says next.

“What?”

“I _said– _we probably like, missed our moment.” Patty’s red again. He tries to tuck his hair behind his ear, even though it’s too short now for the gesture to make any difference. He stares hard at the TV. “Like, it just seems– if something was gonna happen, it would’ve happened last year, you know?”

“That’s not true,” TK says reflexively. He wasn’t listening, so he doesn’t know what Patty’s talking about, but whatever it is– TK doesn’t want him to think that they’ve already peaked, that their best is behind them. Pat’s barely 21, for fuck’s sake.

God, TK feels crazy. It definitely doesn’t seem healthy how fast his heart is beating. He wonders if you can actually like, have a heart attack from too much sugar. He’ll have to ask the trainers. Actually, probably best not to tell the trainers he ate like two dozen cookies the night before a game. Maybe he’ll look it up on WebMD. 

TK’s still holding the heart cookie, but he can’t quite bring himself to take a bite out of it. Probably had enough, anyway.

Pat’s looking at him like maybe he asked a question TK didn’t hear.

“We didn’t miss shit,” TK adds quickly. “Our moment’s like, right fucking now, dude.”

“Are you serious?” Patty asks, voice rising incrementally on the final syllable. His eyes are wide, like he’s surprised, and TK hates how hesitant he sounds. Maybe he’s been thinking it too, that things aren’t the same. That they’re– drifting.

It’s bullshit, they’re not – they’re still them. Nothing’s _changed_.

TK tries to breathe through the sudden tightness in his chest. His heart is actually going to pound right out of his fucking chest.

“Yeah, man,” he says, sounding more confident than he feels. “This is it. Right now.”

He makes a sweeping gesture encompassing the TV, where Bruce Willis is barefoot and bleeding, the Christmas tree with a pile of presents underneath and a shiny gold star on top. The box of cookies on his lap, Patty on the couch next to him with his fingertips resting gently against his mug to keep it from tipping over when he breathes in, deep.

“For real?”

TK can’t tell what Patty’s face is doing, but he says “Yeah,” like he means it. Like he knows what they’re even talking about.

Pat sits up and pulls his legs off the coffee table, puts his mug down. He never stops looking at TK as he scoots closer to him. It’s kind of a lot of eye contact, by Patty’s standards, gaze flitting across his face like he’s looking for something.

By the time TK figures out what’s happening, Pat’s already kissing him, a hand curled tentatively around the back of TK’s neck and his mouth soft against his.

TK’s first thought is that he tastes of chocolate.

His second thought is _Jesus christ, Patty’s kissing me_.

“Oh,” TK says, muffled against Pat’s mouth. A lot of things suddenly make a lot more sense. The conversation they just had, for starters. The cookies. Like puzzle pieces slotting into place.

He realises too late that he’s not actually kissing Patty back, like a total idiot, and Pat’s already pulling back and dropping his hand, so red he’s practically fluorescent. He looks like he just got punched, but like, in the feelings. TK’s seen him get punched for real and he normally just looks pissed, not like– sad. _Scared_. 

“Fuck,” Patty says, and then, “I’m sorry,” and then he’s trying to scramble off the couch to, what, leave? TK blindly reaches out and grabs him by the front of his hoodie.

“Don’t– Pat– I was just–” 

Patty’s wrapped his hand around TK’s wrist where he’s holding him, his pulse beating rabbit-fast under TK’s hand. The sugar, he thinks, insanely, for a second. Of course it’s not the fucking sugar. Patty’s eyes are wide, _wider_, and he opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else, but TK crawls on his knees over to him.

“Do that again,” he says.

He feels crazy. Patty kissed him. Pat made him cookies and then he _kissed him_, and now TK’s climbing into his lap, a leg on either side of him. It simultaneously feels completely insane and like the most natural thing in the world to put his hands on Patty’s face and lean in, scrape his teeth over his bottom lip until he makes a soft sound in the back of his throat and opens his mouth.

Patty’s hands are on his thighs, and then on his hips, and then he’s pushing them up underneath TK’s hoodie to roam across his back, and TK’s crazy with it, he never wants to stop doing this, so of course, _of course_ that’s when there’s voices out in the hallway and a key turns in the lock.

Sanny and Alex, the bastards. TK takes back everything he’s ever said or thought about how much he likes living with them. He doesn’t. They’re the worst roommates with the worst timing.

“Shit,” TK says, and scrambles off Patty’s lap. He looks– TK can’t look at him, god. Pat runs his fingers through his hair and licks his lips. There’s a smile tugging at his mouth that breaks into a grin when he locks eyes with TK, and then he laughs, soft and goofy, and all TK wants to do is crawl back into his lap and keep kissing him.

Instead, he rakes his hands through his own hair and scoots over until there’s a respectable distance between them, picks up the cookies from where they’d tipped out of the container onto the rug, heart on top, and tries desperately to look like he wasn’t just making out with Patty when Sanny and Alex walk in.

He doesn’t know what to do with his face. Or his hands. He maybe does an okay job of sounding normal while he chats to Sanny about the Christmas market they just went to – Sanny doesn’t say anything, anyway – but every time he glances at Patty out the corner of his eye, Pat’s barely suppressing a grin, and that almost sets TK off in turn. Alex comes back into the room with a mug of tea and starts telling him about this handmade soap she picked up, and TK feels hysterical, like he’s ten seconds away from losing it entirely.

He opens his mouth without thinking and says, “Pats, do you wanna head into my room and help me, uh–”

Patty looks at him expectantly, like he’s really counting on TK to come up with a good reason why they need to leave the room right this minute.

TK glances at the tree. “– wrap some presents?” he finishes, in desperation.

Patty’s mouth twitches. “I’m really good at wrapping presents.”

“Cool,” TK says inanely. His face feels red, but Sanny doesn’t give him a look, or anything, as he pushes off the couch, so it must be fine.

“Wrapping paper’s in the hallway closet,” Alex calls after him, and TK gives her a goofy thumbs up. Behind him, Patty laughs, and doesn’t stop laughing as TK herds him into the hallway, shaking with it by the time they fall through TK’s bedroom door and TK backs him into it, hands up under his hoodie to find warm skin, Patty laughing into his mouth when he kisses him again.

It’s different, but maybe, TK thinks, as Patty slides a hand into his hair, sometimes different is good.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to [stromesquad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stromesquad) for the beta. 💖
> 
> podfic, remixes, and other transformative works welcome, as long as they're archive-locked. i'm on [twitter](http://twitter.com/manybumblebees).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] sweetness sings from every corner](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28529199) by [LittleRedRobinHood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRedRobinHood/pseuds/LittleRedRobinHood)
  * [[podvid] Sweetness Sings From Every Corner](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28854561) by [Annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annapods/pseuds/Annapods)


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